1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to networked computer applications, and in particular to an method and apparatus for dynamically mapping application program interfaces.
2. Description of Related Art
An important trend in the industry is the development of client/server architectures in distributed computing environments to support transaction processing applications. Currently, distributed computing environments typically comprise interconnected mainframes, minicomputers, servers, and workstations. Libraries implemented in the client/server architecture are used by the client/server applications, usually through application program interfaces (APIs) designed for use with "C" or other programming languages, to respond to commands and perform application functions. In general, these libraries may be resident on all of the nodes in the client/server architecture within a networked environment.
One advantage of the distributed client/server architecture is the ability to support different application environments. This feature is particularly useful in providing services to remote users because in some cases, hardware, communications, data access, cost, or other limitations, may require these remote users to implement reduced functionality, or "lightweight," versions of the applications supported by the client/server architectures. A client/server architecture is thus presented with two application environments, the runtime environment of the full functionality user, and the remote environment of the limited functionality user.
The dual-environment capabilities of the client-server architecture presents unique problems. One of these problems is that the libraries that contain the runtime APIs are different from the libraries that contain remote APIs. In addition, there may be several APIs that are not supported in the remote API set. This situation prevents applications from running transparently using either runtime APIs or remote APIs.
The traditional solution to the problems presented by the dual environment is to produce two separate binary applications, one linked with each set of libraries. However, a single executable binary application should be able to run using either API set without requiring the application to be linked with the specific libraries at compile-time. The present application satisfies that need by dynamically linking with the appropriate libraries and binding the appropriate APIs at run-time, thus allowing a single application to operate in the dual environment.